HYDERABAD: Tension prevailed for a while, at Ambedkar Park, on Tank Bund here on Saturday, when activists of the Madiga Reservation Porata Samithi (MRPS) tried to remove the yet-to-be-unveiled statue of former Congress and Dalit leader G Venkatswamy. The statue should not be erected in Ambedkar Park, they demanded. Police brought the situation under control by arresting the agitators.
The state government has decided to unveil the statue of Venkataswamy, popularly known as Kaka, near Ambedkar statute on his birth anniversary on October 5.
The MRPS leaders alleged that erecting Kaka’s statute besides Ambedkar would lower the stature of the latter.
“In fact, Kaka had earlier said that no statue of a political leader be erected near Ambedkar statue. If there were to be any statue besides Ambedkar, it should be that of Buddha,” Telangana MRPS president Vangapalli Srinivas said recalling the statement of Kaka.
He pointed out that the YS Rajashekar Reddy government in the united AP had issued a GO mandating that there should be no statue besides Ambedkar.
Srinivas threatened to launch massive protests across the state with Dalit organisations, if the government do not remove Kaka’s statue. He said if the government wants to erect the statue it can do elsewhere. Around 20 Dalit organisations participated in the protest.